Don't people realise how much it hurts

[sunflower]

Hi all

I don't think you can assume because someone has over 1,000 people in their tree that they have copied chunks of it.  Surely it depends on how long they had been researching.  I started 28 years ago in 1983.  I've never copied anyones tree, but mine does contain an extended family as I have also searched my husband's line, brother in laws, sister in laws, and stepfathers lines.  I'm beginning to run out of fresh lines to start !!

Carol

[Jocie]

I now write little notes in the comments part of my Ancestry tree with things like "this might not be correct " or " just found this and still investigating".

Oh and I do have over 1000 names on my tree and most have been thoroughly researched over 5 years.

But it I have any wrong - I would love to someone to help me correct it.

I too have over a thousand names on my tree. I have copied the odd person from other peoples trees but only after I have checked the details for myself and found the original source.
My only real moan is when I put living people as private on my tree and then find their details on other peoples trees.
I have found my details and those of my husband on other peoples trees. Only in one case have I managed to get these removed. We're neither of us as young as we were but at the last count we were both still classed as living!!
And yes I too am very grateful if someone suggests a correction it sometimes opens up new pathways.
I would guess that most of us have been in the position where we were sure the information we added was correct and then later new information has revealed that we were wrong. I certainly have come across
errors in my own tree that I have made and I think I'm careful

[Nick29]

Well, I'm not trying to boast, but my tree currently stands at 6173 people 

Why ?   Various reasons.....

a) When I started researching my wife's tree, I (foolishly) continued her line back from her entry on my tree 

b) Because I'm exploring every branch line on my paternal side, to try to prove whether the many people of the same surname (and often the same profession) living in the same hamlet as my g.g. grandfather were actually his relatives, and

c) to try to establish where the family originated.

My tree is on Ancestry, and is visible to all, and I don't really mind who uses the information from it.   As far as I'm concerned, genealogical research is about sharing information.

However....... now and again I have to play "What if ?".....  quite often putting an 'educated guess' in, which quite often brings up some promising suggested matches in Ancestry.  Although I always put notes saying things like 'educated guess, cannot prove', this is often missed by people who take it as verbatim, and then complain because I've allegedly misled them.  So now, I have a separate small private tree which is not found by Ancestry's search engines, where I can try out my "What if's' to my heart's content.  I also cannot afford to purchase certificates for the people in every branch line that I explore, so I can't vouch for people in the 'outer reaches' of my tree, although I always do as much as I can where the budget allows.  Sometimes it's hard to explain to people that I do my research for my benefit, and my entertainment, and my enjoyment, when they complain that they have been misled by my data.

Even though, of course, the onus of proof is always with the recipient of information, not the donor 

[Sloe Gin]

Well said, Nick.

I would add that there is no law against researching families to which one has no personal relationship.  Many people around the world research local history topics (such as war memorials) and it can sometimes be helpful to draw up family trees around individuals of interest.

[Gillg]

A few years ago I got in touch with a distant relative, who has a massive family tree on her website, tracing her ancestry (and mine, I assume) back to the Kings of Scotland and throwing in a few Vikings as well.   We share the same gt-gt-grandfather.  We corresponded a few times by email, and discovered that we had both known some of our shared relatives at some point in the past, which was nice.  Some time later I looked at her website and discovered that she had added my parents, myself and husband and our children.  She must have found my mother's birth date and done some rough calculations from there.  She obviously didn't bother to check my parents' marriage date and assumed that they married at 25 (they were 30) and had children straight away (there was a quite a wait for the arrival of my brother and later me).  She then assumed that I married at 25 (no, I was 30) and that my children arrived straight away (again, there was quite a wait).  In consequence she has me, my husband and my children shown as 15-20 years older that we actually are!  I have tried to get her to correct these errors, but so far without success.

I wonder whether the Scottish and Viking kings were arrived at in the same careless way.

[BashLad]

Perhaps someone with a tree twice as big as yours is a generation younger than you. 

[J11]

I stand corrected on my thousands comment!  It was just a number I plucked out of the air so please don't take offence, none intended.  I am seriously impressed with those of you who have reached that sort of number genuinely.  It makes my 150 odd, of which I was so proud, look pathetic.

Jenny

[flipflops]

I'm researching several  trees. some blood line, some in-laws. I've been at it for quite a while and now my research amounts to quite a few people.  If I'm not too sure of a name or an event I pop it down anyway and mark it as a query. In the same way, when I come across someone with one of 'my' less common surnames in the same village, I pop them onto the tree in the belief that there bound to fit in at some point.

I've no doubt that others looking at my trees would be hard put to find the method in my madness, but I do try to be careful with more recent records that might be a bit raw to anyone else who came across it, but I do find major problems with photos other researchers might have sent me, I'd love to ask permission to  put them on my tree, but always have that niggle of doubt as to whether I'm asking the right person - so I don't do it.

[J11]

I agree with you about photos and recent generations.  It's odd, I hadn't really thought about it before, but I would be shocked if I found myself and my immediate family on someone's tree.  I don't know why I am being so sensitive.  Maybe it's that I think one ought to be going back in time from oneself; and that going back and sideways and then forward in time to someone else's family in the present, and putting it on a tree without permission, seems to be an invasion of privacy.